Monday Musings With The Crew

• Penn State officials had Joe Paterno's stature removed from outside their football stadium over the weekend.  According to university president Rodney Erickson, the statue had "become a source of division and an obstacle to healing in our University and beyond".  My advice to the Paterno apologists that are upset with Erickson's decision.....just turn your head and pretend it's not happening.

• A 14 year old boy used his father's handgun to protect himself and his 3 siblings from an armed intruder Friday afternoon at their Phoenix home.  The teenager and his young siblings were at home by themselves when a woman rang their doorbell.  Not recognizing the woman, the 14 year old refused to open the door.  When someone started bashing the door down shortly thereafter, the boy sent the other children upstairs, and retrieved the gun from his parent's bedroom.  An armed man broke through the door and aimed at the youngster.  The teen shot the intruder, wounding him critically.  I wonder what anti-gun crusader Michael Bloomberg thinks of this young man's heroic actions?  This incident is one more affirmation of my theory on armed criminals.....when a bad guy with a gun wants to commit crimes, generally the only thing that will deter him is a good guy with a gun.  

• New York schoolteacher Lissete Bamenga is facing 2 counts of first degree murder after "allegedly" killing her 2 young children by forcing them to drink windshield de-icing fluid.  Russian mother Galina Ryabkova "allegedly" murdered her two sons, ages 4 and 7, by throwing them off the 15th floor balcony of their Moscow apartment building recently.  Shall we ban multi-story buildings and windshield washer fluid?  The take-home message is that deranged, evil people will commit disturbing and evil crimes with whatever means they have available.  No law or statute will stop them, the best tool to defeat evil is a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding citizen. 

• The worst school-related mass murderer in United States history was Andrew Kehoe.  Kehoe killed 44 people at the Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Michigan.  He committed his atrocity on May 18.  The year was 1927.  His weapon.....multiple caches of dynamite that he had hidden in the school over the course of many months.  Evil is out there folks, and no governmental regulation is going to make it go away.